


how easy you are to need

by insunshine



Series: how easy you are to need [1]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 03:54:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11843460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insunshine/pseuds/insunshine
Summary: Dylan comes out when he's fifteen.





	how easy you are to need

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gigantic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gigantic/gifts).



> 1\. This is the second of three ridiculous things written for my best pal @gigantic's birthday. Dear @gigantic, I love you, you're the best, I hope I did these nerds justice.  
> 2\. This is part one of a two (and possibly more, but let's be real, hmm?) part series. No, I don't know when the rest will be posted. Yes, there will be way more fucking in the next one. #Spoilers.  
> 3\. Titled by a lyric in Hozier's "It Will Come Back" and edited by the lovely @asmallbluedot.

2012\. Summer. Home.

 

When he's fifteen, Dylan says, “I think I like dudes.”

It's summer, and Ryan will never forget this moment, because it's thirty two fucking degrees outside, but he feels like he's freezing.

Dylan squints at him, using his hand to shield his eyes from the sun and says, “Don't freak out, okay?”

Ryan makes his mouth move, knows the right words, even though it feels like autopilot when he says, “Nothing to freak out about, man. Good for you.”

“I'm going pro,” Dylan says, casual as anything. He'd been eating breakfast, so he goes back to it, methodical in the way that he cuts the egg whites and uses his crusts to dunk in the yolk. 

“Okay,” Ryan agrees. He'd like to think his mind is racing, but it's not. It's so blank, he's having a hard time putting two words together. 

“I'm just saying,” Dylan says, wiping his mouth with a paper napkin. “I'm going pro, so it's probably something to freak out about a little bit.”

Ryan hasn’t been able to focus on him for a minute, but the comment drags his gaze back. He's so chill right now. Dylan stares back at him with his eyebrows raised, just a little, just waiting.

“What do you want me to say?” Ryan asks. He can feel his voice break before he hears it, but Dylan’s face doesn't change, his gaze steady.

“I don't want you to say anything.” He takes a sip of his juice, thunking the thick mug back on the table and stretching his arms high above his head. “I've been thinking about telling you for a while, so I just told you. You don't have to have a fucking panic attack about it.”

Ryan blinks at him. He can't tell if he's been blinking too much or not enough, or the exact right amount. 

“I’m not _panicking_ ,” he says, even though the truth is that he might be. 

It's not what Dylan thinks. It's not condemnation, or disgust, or disappointment. It's that he didn't know. He had no idea, and Dylan just kept it from him, this big secret that his brother had growing inside of him and didn't let anyone see. 

“How long have you, uh,” Ryan says, and busies himself with taking a sip of coffee too fast and burning the roof of his mouth. He winces, and swallows it down, but obviously not fast enough, since Dylan’s laughing at him again. “I mean, have you, with a dude, have you ever —”

“I'm gonna stop you there,” Dylan says, and for a second, Ryan is so grateful, if only because apparently even vocal diarrhea makes his stomach hurt. The reprieve only lasts for a second, though, because Dylan is entirely serious when he says, “That part is none of your business.”

Ryan can't curb his instincts fast enough, the words shoving out of his mouth before he can stop them. “So, what. You're just never gonna bring anybody home? Are you gonna tell Mom and Dad, or are they just gonna expect grandbabies until one day they accidentally catch you with Sven, some skiing instructor you met during the All Star Break?”

Dylan meets his eyes, and he doesn't even twitch before he says, “Fuck you, man. What makes you think I'm not going to get voted in?” 

He's smiling by the end, at least, bumps his shoulders against Ryan’s as they pick up their dishes and bring them into the kitchen.

“Do Mom and Dad know?” 

Dylan shrugs, turning both spigots outward, so the outpouring water collecting in the base of the sink won't be too hot. 

“Mom does, I guess,” he says, squeezing in dish soap and starting to wipe down their stuff. “She asked the other night if I was still ‘seeing Katie’ because I hadn't mentioned her in a while, and I just told her, man. There never was any Katie.”

Ryan can feel every slam of his heart against his ribs. It’s stupid, he knows it's probably not true, but it feels true. It feels like every part of his body is ringing in high alert.

“You made up a girlfriend? You had a fake girlfriend? Where were you going all the time, if you didn't...”

He stops, the squeezing feeling back in his guts again. Fuck, he shouldn't have had so much coffee, the acid makes everything ten times worse.

“His name’s Kevin,” Dylan says dryly, and Ryan is watching his mouth, so he sees the words, but it still feels like there's a delay. He's not moving anywhere near fast enough today. “I was doing something funny there, with the gender pronoun switch. Tried really hard to date a guy named Sam, which is at least neutral, but… no dice.”

He holds his palms up, the universal what-can-you-do gesture, and Ryan laughs, because he's supposed to. He can feel it when Dylan glances at him from the corner of his eye, assessing, like maybe Ryan won't be as cool with this as he should be.

“You think you're so funny,” Ryan says instead, dragging Dylan in by the scruff of his neck and digging his knuckles down against the top of his head. His brother has grown in the last few months, taking up so much more space than he used to. He’s already standing with more confidence. 

“I think I misheard you,” Dylan says, finding his voice again. “I think I'm the funniest? You've never met anybody else this funny? I'm you're favorite?”

“Never met anybody else that funny looking, maybe,” Ryan says. 

Dylan lets his body go limp, like he thinks that’ll make Ryan let go. 

“You're not cute,” Ryan mutters, but when Dylan peeks up at him from under his arm, and under his terrible bangs, he's got to revise that opinion.

“You're a terrible liar,” Dylan says, which is the truth, not that Ryan’s rushing to agree.

;;

2015\. Summer. Key West.

 

“Do you think you could fucking _knock_?” Ryan’s heart is rattling so hard against his ribs it feels like a bomb is about to explode in his chest. He winces when he hears the thud, but it turns out he hasn't fallen over, nope, it's just Dylan throwing a pillow against the door.

“Sorry,” he calls through the wall, and he hears Dylan yelling, “Fuck off. Don't you have to go bleach out your eyes?”

That would make the most sense, probably. Walking in on your younger brother giving head to the hot bartender from the restaurant isn't something Ryan should have ever seen, let alone be remembering, but on his way back to his room, he can't help it.

It's when he's at his door that he remembers why he'd gone to Dylan’s room at all. 

_I think I left my wallet in your room_ , he texts. _I wasn't trying to be a perv._

Dylan responds right away, so he can't be too mad. _Sure_ his phone reads, and then, _don't see it, man. Check with Matt._

He's already checked with Matt, considering they'd walked up from dinner together, but he doesn't bother saying so, too tired all of a sudden to want to do anything but slump against his door and lean his head against his knees.

 _Check again, pls._ he texts, a little while later. He's trying to find his zen, trying not to imagine Dylan’s shoulders rippling under his shirt, or the wet noises he'd been making. Ryan’s had blowjobs. He knows what that sounds like. His phone rattles in his lap again, making his skin prickle. 

_kind of preoccupied_ he reads. He closes his eyes, thunking his head back against the door. The room had been dark, but he'd still been able to make out the bright white of Dylan’s cap and his t-shirt. 

Honestly, he hadn't seen much, just Dylan’s red, red mouth when he'd turned around. His lips had seemed swollen, and Ryan’s first instinct was concern, and then… and then something else.

His phone buzzes again, and he's only a little disappointed when it turns out it's JT asking when he's getting back to Long Island.

 _Two weeks, I think?_ He's pretty sure, but he's also trying to get as much time as he can with Dylan, not that that really seems to be happening. 

_Trying to pin down Dyl, huh?_ JT sends back right away, and Ryan flinches, trying not to think about it. 

_Thinks he's hot shit now_ he sends back, thudding his head against the door again. 

He's not exactly sober, which explains almost everything. It at least explains how muzzy everything is. It feels like he's slow from the inside out, from his thoughts to his voice, to his feet.

The phone rings on his thigh, and for a minute, Ryan just stares at it, trying to see through the back and figure out who might be calling him at two in the morning.

“What,” he says, hoping that it's not his mom. On the other hand, if she's calling so late, she's probably not going to give a shit about politeness.

“Where are you?” Dylan asks. He sounds a little out of breath. Ryan tries not to think about why.

“Uh,” Ryan says, swinging his head to look down both sides of the hallway. “My room? Or. Outside my room, I guess. What's up? Did you finish your — um.”

The fact that he can't say the word _blowjob_ is stressful, but no one has to know.

“I found your stuff,” Dylan says, ignoring him, which is probably for the best. “Why the fuck did you leave your wallet in my bathroom?”

“It was in my back pocket,” Ryan says, rolling his eyes. “Didn't want it to fall out of my jeans when I was taking a dump.”

He hears Dylan stifling a laugh, and after a while, he says, “It’s gross that you came all the way to a hotel just to shit in someone else’s private space.”

“I had to go,” Ryan says, whinier than he wants.

He drops his phone when a pair of shower shoes come into his line of sight. Dylan’s feet are long and bony, attached to longer, bonier chicken legs that look like they go on forever, or at least until his thighs and his ridiculous, rounded bubble butt.

“You need to get a better lock on your stuff,” he says, dropping down to the carpet and making himself comfortable. He leans his head on Ryan’s shoulder, easy-as-you-please, and it's totally normal except for how Ryan can't let himself relax.

“I forgot,” Ryan says. “You were yelling at me to get moving.”

Dylan’s face is tucked against his shoulder, but Ryan can practically feel him smiling. “I had places to go, things to do.”

“You mean ‘people to do’,” Ryan says. For a second, it's totally silent between them, then Dylan starts to laugh, the sound filling up the empty hallway.

“Yeah, I guess that’s what I mean,” Dylan says, lifting his head up.

Ryan’s probably quiet for too long before he says, “How'd you even meet that guy, anyway? Didn’t seem like he spoke English, and I know you don't speak Spanish.”

“Portuguese,” Dylan says, tucking his face back down again. “He’s Portuguese, bee tee doubleyou, and I probably know how to say ‘do you want a blowjob’ in every language.” 

“Is that your special skill?” Ryan asks. It feels like he's blinking too much, but he can't get his eyes to stop.

“What,” Dylan asks, voice lazy, like he's either unaware of the blinking, or at least not concerned about it. “The blowjobs or the linguistic skills?”

Ryan clears his throat. His t-shirt feels too tight. He kind of wants to tug at his collar, but that might dislodge Dylan, which is simultaneously the first and the last thing he wants to do.

“Who knew you had such an oral fixation?” he asks, not really expecting an answer, experiencing a kind of movie montage of all the times Dylan’s played with his mouth guard or his fingernails or chewed on pen caps until they were basically useless.

Dylan shrugs. “I mean, I guess I do. I like giving head, and besides, like, I'm not a creep. You gotta be polite, grease the wheels before you ask some hot bartender to fuck you.”

He moves without realizing it, and Dylan loses his balance a little bit, but not enough to fall, or anything. 

“Do you do that?” Ryan asks. His voice sounds high and hysterical, but he can't seem to get it under control. “Dyl, you're using protection, right? Because you can't — you have to be careful.”

“Are you kidding me right now? Did you think we weren't tested down in Erie?”

“Dyl.”

“Ry.”

“Dyl,” Ryan says, reaching out to grab Dylan’s hands. “Be serious.”

“Yes, I'm safe,” Dylan grits the words out behind his teeth. “I have never not been safe, except with Connor that one time, but it was only blowjobs. We 69-ed. He didn't like it.” He snickers, like it's funny. Somehow, he’s able to sit in this hallway and talk about his sex life like it's nothing. 

Maybe Ryan’s done that before, too. He can't remember. It's different, though, when it's Dylan. He doesn't want to hear it.

“Why didn't he like it?” Ryan hears himself ask. 

It doesn't feel like he’s the one talking, but maybe there's autopilot for the kind of talking you do about your siblings’ sex lives.

“Why do you care?” Dylan asks. Right, so they're back here again.

“Dylan.”

“No, I'm serious,” Dylan says, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Why do you care?”

Ryan’s mouth is dry, and his palms are sweating. He can't breathe properly. “You're my brother. Of course I care.”

He's waiting for Dylan to say, _I don't care how you get your dick wet, Ry._ or maybe, _Not good enough, bro. Try again._ What happens instead is that Dylan says, “Maybe I just don't have enough practice.”

“Practice,” Ryan says. “You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.” 

In unison, they say, “Gretzky,” and grin.

“Listen,” Ryan says, but thankfully, Dylan cuts him off, because he has no idea how to continue. 

“Have you ever raw-dogged anybody?” He makes a face at himself, and then says, “Actually, sorry, that was gross. Have you ever, uh. Gone bare?”

“Only when the girl’s been on the pill, and even then, not, like. Often.” Dylan’s gaze feels heavy on his skin, and Ryan feels himself blushing. “Do we have to talk about this?”

“You're the one who wanted to!” Dylan says. His voice is a whisper, but it's a furious, emotive one. “You brought it up!”

“Yeah,” Ryan says, trying to keep his own temper in check, but not really succeeding. “Because I walked in on you sucking the dick of some guy we met an hour ago.”

Dylan crosses his arms in front of himself. “I used a fucking condom, man. It was as safe as it could be, okay? Stop trying to slut shame me. I might get around, but I'm not dumb.”

“I wasn’t trying to do that,” Ryan says. He pinches the skin between his eyes, and tries to breathe calmly. “I was just… big brothering. Trying to help. Sorry, I know. Mind your own business, Ryan. Stay out of it, Ryan. Sorry. I just wasn’t expecting to walk into that.”

“I forgot to lock the door,” Dylan says with a shrug. “It’s not all on you.” He slumps down next to Ryan again, dropping his head. “I’m just, ugh, I’m fucked up about it, I think. Maybe? I think I want a boyfriend.”

Ryan takes a breath before he says, “Not Connor?” He’s rewarded by the way Dylan laughs.

“He’s kind of a basketcase,” Dylan says, but he’s smiling, so fondly. “Also he doesn’t really like dick, so. That’s a problem.”

“Sounds like a big one,” Ryan says, and Dylan laughs, digging his elbow into his belly. 

“I’ll show you a big one,” he says, but he’s giggling too hard to get all the words out as seriously as he’s clearly trying to. 

“Oh yeah?” Ryan says. “Prove it. I want to see it.” 

“I’ll do it,” Dylan says, hands on the waistband of his sweats. “Who d’you think you’re daring, man? I’ll do it.” 

Ryan’s breath gets caught in his throat. “Who’s stopping you?” he says. 

Dylan’s eyes go wide, and he whispers, “Shouldn’t you be stopping me?”

He leans in, moving forward fast, daring and reckless like he always is. Ryan tips himself to to the side, flat on his back on the ugly hotel carpet.

“Um, Ry?” Dylan says, sounding small and far away. Ryan doesn't pick his head up, but then again, Dylan doesn't lean over. “Are you dead? Did you pass out? I'm leaving you here if you passed out, you dick. You're too heavy to drag inside.”

“You would just leave me?” Ryan asks, even as he's sliding his eyes closed so he doesn't have to look at his brother.

“It's a dog eat dog world,” Dylan says solemnly, and he sounds so serious that Ryan has to pop his eyes open again. “And I'm gonna eat you.”

It's a tickle sneak attack, and because he's on his back, he's totally defenseless. Dylan drops forward, digging his teeth into Ryan’s shoulder, and his fingers against the secret, ticklish places at his neck. They're probably making a racket, but no one comes out to check on them, thank fuck. It's over almost as quick as it started when Dylan collapses next to him on the carpet, their shoulders brushing and their knees banging together.

“That was unkind,” Ryan says, trying to sound as much like their mom as possible. “I didn't like it.”

Dylan rolls his eyes. “Yeah, like you wouldn’t take advantage.”

“Not on an injured man on his own in the wild!” Ryan hisses back. 

“Who knew drunk was code for injured?” Dylan asks, idly, turning onto his side so that they're even closer together. 

“Who knew “Dylan” was code for annoying?” Ryan asks. 

It's lame, but it has the added bonus of making Dylan’s face scrunch. It's the perfect opportunity for Ryan to push up to his feet, reaching down for his wallet and reaching a hand out to help Dylan, too.

“You want to stay here?” he asks, not really thinking about it as he unlocks the door to his room. “I told them not to book us three rooms, but Mom went on and on about respecting our privacy.”

“Think she had a Groupon or something,” Dylan says, stuffing his hands in his pockets. 

“She know you were planning on hooking up?” Ryan asks, tugging his shirt off without feeling awkward about it before remembering that he probably should.

“Uh, no,” Dylan says, and even though the lights are off, Ryan can tell that he's blushing. “Why are you such an asshole? Who talks to their mom about their sex life?”

“You apparently.” Ryan bumps their shoulders together as he goes around to the other side of the bed. “You staying? Come on, we could watch a movie or something. Order room service. The concierge said it was twenty four hour, right?” He pats the mattress, but Dylan holds his ground.

“All my stuff is back there,” he says. “I haven't even brushed my teeth.”

“Wait a second. You sucked off that guy, and you didn't even brush your teeth after? Dude, that's fucked.”

Dylan blushes again. Ryan tries not to watch the way it slides under his shirt collar. “It's not like he finished. Not after my asshole brother banged in.”

“Did you even use mouthwash? Does your breath just taste like dick right now?” 

Ryan doesn't know why he's pushing it. He's gone out right after sex before. He's done it proudly. There's something about messing with Dylan, about pressing on this particular bruise, that's getting under his skin.

“It's not that bad,” Dylan mumbles, keeping his voice down, even though the door is closed, and they're alone this time. “And yes, by the way, I did use mouthwash. That doesn't stop your teeth from feeling weird, though.”

“Yeah, yeah, Dick Teeth,” Ryan says, shoving Dylan’s shoulder and pushing him toward the door. “I'm going to change your name in my contacts.”

Dylan’s laughing, lunging for Ryan’s phone like he really would, and like he'd do it now. “Don't call me that. It doesn't, ugh. If it smells like freaking anything, it's spearmint, like the condoms.”

“You bought flavored condoms?”

“Yeah,” Dylan says, “And the flavor is fucking great.”

He bounces up slightly on his toes, once and then again, and then he's pushing their mouths together quickly, like Ryan would be able to taste anything from him but skin and the memory of the mouthwash.

“Um, see? You can't even tell the difference,” Dylan says, and then practically runs from the room.

“Fuck,” Ryan says to the empty room.


End file.
